An unworthy Deacon, named for the brother of God: James, striving to "work out his salvation with fear and trembling" within the Tradition (paradosis) of the Eastern Orthodox Faith. It is a strange and marvelous journey, and I am accompanied by the fourfold fruit of my fecundity. My wife, the Matushka or Diaconissa Sophia, is my beloved partner in the pursuit of Theosis, and she ranks me in every way.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Abstinence and Faithfulness in Uganda

In the last few weeks I started finding some expat bloggers in Uganda and through them I've found a number of native Kampalan bloggers. It has been my experience both via my time in Uganda and these blogs that the Ugandan people are generally quite conservative. (Consider the trouble that the Anglican Communion has with their African brethren vs. their liberal western brethren).

The same "trouble" seems to be present amongst many charitable westerners who end up in Africa to help with secular (e.g. UN) aid programs and their African counterparts or recipients of said charity. One of the bigger issues in Uganda lately has been the dismissal of abstinence education programs by westerners as worthless and their advocacy of homosexual behavior. It would seem that many Ugandans (Africans?) reject such "progressive" western aid.

Below are a couple of fantastic public service style advertisements that I don't think we'd ever see in the United States. Ironically, pay close attention at the end to note who sponsored them.

Apparently, the US government thinks Africans have what it takes, but Americans don't.

Can we imagine if we collectively worked to make practices like abstinence until marriage and faithfulness therein seem as hip as a Hannah Montana concert?

As it is we dismiss the notion of abstinence without realizing that we undermine it to begin with by way of our own cultural freewill. It's like telling a man to refrain from having his passions inflamed while his eyes are duct taped open at a strip club.

Anyway, you are completely right about this being a Bush thing. As I understand it, while Clinton was in office USAID was handing out free cigars to Uganda.:)~